Fudan University will team up with CSM Media Research, China's leading television audience measurement service provider, to study changes in TV ratings across the country over the past decade.

 

Conducted by Fudan's journalism school, the research will be based on existing ratings, as well as an analysis of audiences, programs and advertisements in 35 major cities since 1997. Lu Ye, vice director of Fudan's information and communication studies center, said the research is part of a shift in journalism education.

 

"Most journalism education mainly focuses on teaching students hands-on skills, such as interviewing, news writing, and editing," Lu said yesterday. "But modern media development has pushed us from the news production process to pay more attention to market feedback."

 

Fudan opened the country's first rating analysis course in 2005, but until it signed a deal with CSM yesterday it didn't have any access to actual TV ratings.

 

"We've noticed a change in Chinese people's TV watching habits... as new TV channels have grabbed audiences from CCTV's monopoly in the 1980s," said Zhou Baohua of the school's public opinion survey center. "But we need statistics to back up our judgment."

 

(Shanghai Daily June 15, 2007)